


the salt water sting

by callunavulgari



Series: Dark Month Collection [67]
Category: Dishonored (Video Games)
Genre: M/M, Night Terrors, Shipwrecks, Storms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-10
Updated: 2019-10-10
Packaged: 2020-11-28 19:27:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,163
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20971796
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/callunavulgari/pseuds/callunavulgari
Summary: The ship wrecks several hundred miles off of the coast of Karnaca. The storm that ends them is a rare sort, fiercer than most, a huge bank of dark clouds that seems to come from the void itself, blooming on the horizon like a warning. The lightning cracks the world asunder, thunder deafening, but it's the wind and waves that will always be a ship’s downfall.Corvo watched the wave approach, saw its frothing white caps and the way it had stretched, higher and higher, until it loomed over the ship.They never had a chance, and by the time the wave came crashing down, Corvo was already holding his breath.





	the salt water sting

**Author's Note:**

> Day 9 of October. Prompts for the day were: night terrors, shipwrecked, dare, nightmare, “it will kill you if you don’t say please”, wax candles, and alone. I actually wasn't sure what I wanted to write for this until I was searching for music to write to, and found my corvosider mix. Duh, Heather. Shipwreck and nightmares? Dishonored was made for prompts like these.

The ship wrecks several hundred miles off of the coast of Karnaca. The storm that ends them is a rare sort, fiercer than most, a huge bank of dark clouds that seems to come from the void itself, blooming on the horizon like a warning. The lightning cracks the world asunder, thunder deafening, but it's the wind and waves that will always be a ship’s downfall.

Corvo watched the wave approach, saw its frothing white caps and the way it had stretched, higher and higher, until it loomed over the ship.

They never had a chance, and by the time the wave came crashing down, Corvo was already holding his breath.

Much of what he remembers after are mere snippets: the gulping suck of the water around him, broken pieces of the ship spinning by along with those of the crew who were unlucky enough to be caught by the ship’s pull, sucked down into the void, devoured by the whale god himself. He remembers his first gasp of air once he’d surfaced, the tang of brine and salt heavy on his tongue as wave after wave battered his body.

He doesn’t think that most of the crew survived the first few minutes much less the whole night, and he is certainly alone when the sun blossoms on the horizon hours later, clinging to a piece of ship the size of his torso and kicking relentlessly towards the dawn.

Corvo grew up on the coast, his hair stiff with salt from the ocean breeze. He grew up in and out of the water, hauling cargo or gutting fish on the docks. He’s familiar with the ocean - how the pull of the tides work, which days its best to avoid the dock, how to escape the sea’s wrath when a riptide or an undercurrent tries its damndest to drown you.

So he knows that his chances of making it to land are slim. But Corvo has always been stubborn, his legs have always been strong, and his story is far from finished.

The island is not precisely an island. It’s little more than a slab of black glass that juts out of the churning, tumultuous sea. It looks sharp, and he knows that it could slash him to ribbons quicker than any rock, that the waves might swell and dash him against the jagged edges, but it’s his best shot.

When he reaches it, he lays on his back, panting in the noon sun, sucking in great gasps of air.

The island that is not an island looks more like void than anything earth made. It’s not hospitable - no trees grow on it to provide shelter, no crabs burrow in sand that he could pluck out of the earth and devour, no stream will provide him fresh water to drink. The surface of the lava rock is hot to the touch, and he knows that as the day passes, it will only grow hotter.

This rock is just as much of a death sentence as the sea, it will just take him longer to die.

Corvo’s mouth tastes of salt. He longs for fresh water the way he used to crave the taste of Jessamine’s skin. He is parched, his throat raw, stomach cramping from the water the ocean had pumped him full of as he swam. He wishes for a silken pillow to lie his head upon, a cool mattress under his back, salted fish and juicy grapes and fresh bread. But more than anything, he wishes for water.

He sleeps there, fitfully, back scorching on the rock.

And he dreams.

The void is not quite familiar to him yet. He thinks that perhaps it may never be. The whales sing in the murk of the blackness over head, the jagged dark rock so similar to the one that he’d left behind in the real world that if it weren’t for the cool, stagnant air, he’d have thought he never left.

“My dear Corvo,” a voice whispers, and Corvo spins, but there’s no one there.

The Outsider laughs, the sound echoing around them, the only noise for miles. He appears beside Corvo, hovering just out of reach, his black eyes amused.

“Oh Corvo,” he breathes. “You’ve done it again.”

Corvo sighs and closes his eyes. In an exhausted voice, he says, “Even I cannot be responsible for the whims of the sea.”

“No,” the Outsider tells him gently. “You cannot. I’d thought, however, that even your luck couldn’t be _this_ bad.”

Corvo shrugs, feels the scrape of the rock under his shoulderblades. He sits up, and then, carefully, climbs to his feet. He doesn’t say anything to that, because there is nothing to say. Fate, it seems, is a fickle mistress. If she wanted him dead on these rocks, that is exactly what she would get.

There are waxen candles in the air above him, set into candle-holders made of jagged shards of black rock. They hang suspended in the air much like the Outsider, like the island of black that Corvo is standing on, and the one that surely lies in wait after that. There are no rules here in the void.

“How do you plan on getting yourself out of this one?” the Outsider asks him, sounding curious. He stoops, so that his face is hanging in the air just above Corvo. A small smile plays around his lips.

Corvo shrugs again. “I live, or I die. At this junction, I believe that it is up to fate.”

The Outsider frowns, like that isn’t what he wanted to hear, but what did he expect? Even with his powers Corvo is helpless. He can only teleport so far, and the rest of his tricks are all but useless, stranded here on molten rock. He might as well be on the edge of the world.

“Well,” the Outsider sighs. The void is creeping in around them, consuming them both, taking them into the black. “That’s disappointing.”

Corvo wakes up.

The sun has dropped alarmingly low on the horizon, and the waves that lap at the island are playful now. He groans, pushing himself into a sitting position, his head swimming as he looks around him.

The island is a few hundred feet across at best and largely flat. There’s a jagged outcropping on the northern end that he thinks may be good for huddling next to. It won’t do much, but it will hide him from the rays of the sun during a portion of the day at least.

He has to drag himself, and once he’s reached it, he's so exhausted by the meager effort that he collapses into sleep once more.

This time, when he dreams, the Outsider is nowhere to be found.

He is in the void, but it is unlike the void that he has known thus far. This void is darker, blacker, with no candles to light his path. No hovering islands to escort him to treasures or a friendly face. It drowns him, sucks him in like tar and quicksand. He has to shove his way through it, sinking, choking on mouthfuls of stinking black. There is no whale song, just the distant knowledge that something is hunting him through this horrible world.

_It will kill you if you don’t say please_, a voice whispers, insidious. Is it talking about the sea? The sun? Or the creatures that lurk hungry and waiting in the void?

Corvo doesn’t question it. He runs, a plea for mercy on his lips.

When he wakes next, the moon hangs heavy and bloated in the sky above him. The air is blessedly cool, and the wind seems to promise rain. Not now, he thinks, but soon.

Soon is three days later. Corvo is delirious. For days, the heat of the sun has baked him, only for the relief of night to pull him back from the precipice. His belly is so empty that it aches and his thirst is unlike anything he has ever known.

When the first drops fall on his face, he thinks that he is dreaming again. He’s dreamed a lot about water these last few days. The void taunts him with night terrors, murky brown water that he cannot drink, creatures hunting him through the black, void that creeps into his throat and strangles him from the inside, and the Outsider’s face above him, always watching, just out of his reach.

“Oh,” he gasps, and opens his mouth.

It isn’t enough. The droplets are tantalizing, pearls of wetness that land on his tongue, but it does little to slake the thirst. Corvo’s tongue feels like a dried up creature taking shelter in his mouth, shriveled, with the texture of sandpaper.

“Please,” he pleads, closing his eyes.

He doesn’t know who he is begging - if it’s the Outsider or the heavens or the void itself.

The Outsider blossoms into existence beside him, moonlight making his black eyes shine. Shadows curl about his shoulders, creeping around his legs like fog. He looks at Corvo, his eyes wide and dark and deep, and the clouds above them burst.

The downpour soaks him to the bone, cools his scorched skin. His ragged clothes suck it up greedily, and Corvo tears them off of him, frenzied, the fabric ripping under his hands. He lays them out carefully next to him, and naked, lays back down and opens his mouth. His tongue comes back to life in his mouth. The dryness of his throat evaporates, no longer choking him.

The downpour doesn’t let up for over an hour, thunder a low steady rumble as lightning lights up the darkness of the sky above him.

When it has slowed to a drizzle, Corvo lets his mouth close, sliding his newly slick tongue around his sore gums, prodding at teeth. Wearily, he tilts his head to the side so he can better see the Outsider, still lurking off to his right.

“Thank you,” he whispers through cracked and puffy lips.

The Outsider blinks at him slowly, and then vanishes like he was never there.

Before dawn, he sucks the dampness out of his clothes. It tastes of salt, but everything here tastes of salt. He puts his clothes back on, because he doesn’t want to face the heat of the day without them. His skin is burnt enough as it is. Then, he fades back into sleep, back into the void, where the Outsider is waiting for him.

Corvo watches him silently, waiting, and the Outsider cocks his pale head, an unspoken question. The void is quiet, brown water slapping rhythmically against the shore of Corvo's little patch of land. Whale song sounds above him. Today, the void is not a nightmare. Just a simple dream.

He stretches a hand out, his fingers trembling. The Outsider’s mark is very dark against his skin.

“Please,” he says, and the Outsider drifts closer.

“What do you want, Corvo?” he asks, and it doesn’t sound like a riddle. It sounds like a question, solid and true.

Corvo thinks about it. There are many things that he wants. He wants to go home. Wants an endless supply of water and meat and a bed that isn’t sharp under his spine. Wants to continue on to Karnaca, so that he can save his daughter and their home. But right now, he wants the Outsider to touch him. Wants to see if his skin is as cool as it looks, if his lips taste like salt and brine or if they taste like something else.

“Ah,” the Outsider sighs, as if he has heard him, and his feet touch lightly onto the ground before him.

He gathers Corvo in, his embrace welcoming, like the black of oblivion. He has no breath, his lips still against Corvo’s ear, his chest silent.

“You always were my favorite,” he murmurs, like a secret, and leans in.

When Corvo wakes, there is a seal sitting on the rock before him, like it’s waiting, and a shard of black glass at his wrist.

He does not cook it. There’s no fire to do so, no sticks to _make_ one, so he tears into its flesh with his hands and teeth, the hot gush of its blood over his lips just as much of a relief as the rain was the night before. When he’s eaten his fill, he tears strips off and lays them out onto the rock next to him, so they can dry out and harden in the sun.

The Outsider is watching him. He looks strange in the bright light of the sun, like a paler imitation of himself, a god made man.

“A ship will come,” he tells Corvo, his black eyes distant, locked onto the horizon. He looks at Corvo. His eyes are endless, dark and deep. “It may take some time, but it will come.”

Corvo nods, and like smoke, the Outsider fades away.

Corvo turns towards the sea. He waits.

**Author's Note:**

> My [tumblr](https://callunavulgari.tumblr.com/), if you dare.


End file.
